Edmodo Expands Teacher Tools, Centralizes Course Creation

Edmodo, a Web-based social learning network for teachers and students, has introduced new features designed to make it easier to connect with resources and gain insight into students' feelings about assignments, classroom discussions, and shared content.

Edmodo is intended to help K-12 schools and districts create closed, private, online communities for teachers, students, and parents for the purpose of facilitating communication and collaboration. Teachers can use it to post messages, discuss classroom topics, assign and grade work, share content and materials with students, and collaborate and share content with other teachers; students can use it to access projects, assignments, and quizzes; and administrators can use it to track school and classroom engagement, view grades, and schedule events.

New features in Edmodo include:

Ability to connect with other teachers who are teaching the same topics to make it easier to find content to use in the classroom;

Insights feature, for receiving feedback from students and responding to student work and discussions;

Activity stream, which provides a real-time view of all activity from students and connections;

Centralized groups functionality for course creation and delivery;

One-click folder sharing and small group management;

Calendar renamed to Planner;

Multiple schedule view options in Planner;

Task list creation in Planner;

Gradebook renamed to Progress Report; and

Ability to use traditional gradebook and track student badges in Progress Report.

The new features of Edmodo will be rolled out to users over the next few weeks.

The service is currently free for public, nonprofit, private, and charter K-12 schools and districts in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Edmodo Mobile enables users to connect to the network through their Android or iPhone device.

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Students expect a technology environment that allows mobility, flexibility and fast access to curricula and other critical information, while teachers and faculty expect a technology environment that enhances the teaching process and eliminates administrative burdens with easy and fast access and exchange of information to accelerate research and facilitate collaboration.
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